Watch: Shia LaBeouf Takes on Online Film Critics in His New Short ‘Howard Cantour.com’

Watch: Shia LaBeouf Takes on Online Film Critics in His New Short 'Howard Cantour.com'

Shia LaBeouf has written and directed “Howard Cantour.com.,” a promising short film about an online movie critic.

The roughly eleven-minute short follows a tired, philosophically conflicted Howard Cantour (Jim Gaffigan) whose tepid sympathy for his former director hero gets in the way of a harsh review. As Howard steers through the intricate moral dilemmas of his thoughts on cinema and the decidedly influential powers he carries from review to review, LaBeouf offers a pleasantly entertaining take on the inward struggles of a veteran film critic.

What is particularly eye-catching about “Howard Cantour.com” is that while it could so seamlessly fall apart and spiral out of control from a constant, over-packed cascade of themes and ideas, its hero’s sympathetically and comically sullen demeanor holds it all together. “Howard Cantour.com” seems to introduce an ethical impasse, a subtle love interest with freelancer Dakota Zearing (Portia Doubleday) and a series of musings, but LaBeouf’s memorable short is ultimately a surprisingly successful movie on the experience of watching a movie that should only serve to encourage LaBeouf to further test the directorial waters.